By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sean “Diddy” Combs will remain in prison ahead of his May 5, 2025 trial on sex trafficking charges after a U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected his request to be released on $50 million bail The music mogul has been held for 10 weeks.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian announced the decision in a written order after hearing arguments during a two-hour hearing Nov. 22 in federal court in Manhattan.

Combs has been denied bail three times since his arrest, with several judges citing the risk that he could tamper with witnesses.

The rapper and producer pleaded not guilty on September 17 to charges that he used his business empire, including his record label Bad Boy Entertainment, to sexually abuse women.

Prosecutors said the abuse included women participating in recorded sexual performances called “freak offs” with male sex workers, sometimes transported across state lines.

Combs, 55, has denied wrongdoing and his lawyers said the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual.

His defense attorneys argued he should be locked up in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he would be monitored around the clock by private security guards he would pay, and he should be barred from contact with any alleged victims or witnesses.

But prosecutors said it was unlikely Combs would follow those rules.

Behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Combs used other inmates’ identification numbers to make phone calls, violating prison policy on monitoring communications, prosecutors said. Defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro said such exchanges among inmates are routine.

Prosecutors also said a 2016 hotel surveillance video of Combs attacking his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, showed there was a risk he would act violently if released.

“This video is evidence that the defendant is a violent offender and poses a danger to the community,” prosecutor Christine Slavik said at the hearing. “The defendant physically, sexually and emotionally abused his romantic partners for years.”

Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo denied there was any risk that Combs would act violently.

“The chance of something like this happening is zero percent,” Agnifilo said at the hearing.

Combs apologized in May after CNN aired the video of him kicking, pushing and dragging Cassie in a hotel hallway. Agnifilo said he never denied the incident but that the video was not evidence of sex trafficking.

“Our defense of these allegations is that this was a toxic, loving relationship that spanned 11 years,” Agnifilo said in court.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel and Caitlin Webber)